Behind the Bleeding Veil

Twilight ran up to her old bedroom, crying hysterically. She couldn't take it anymore. The entire universe seemed to be closing in on her; determined to cause her as much pain and suffering as possible. She wanted to shut everything out, everyone out. She wanted to be absolutely alone. She even considered going to the Nexus; still the comforting nostalgia of her bedroom would suffice for now. She ran in, shut and locked the door, and collapsed on to her old bed.

Oh poor baby. You weren't expecting that, were you? Little Miss Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, the incarnate form of the goddess Nocturia; you thought you were so good, you thought you had done something so right. You saved all those people but, OOPSIES, it turned out the one was a psychopath and now, how many people are dead that would have been alive if you had just let that bus sink?

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Twilight cried out loud into her pillow. Chrysalis' mocking words were tearing her soul apart.

"Twilight? Twilight? It's me. May I please come in?" Flashes voice was soft, gentle, but concerned. He gently rapt on her door, asking permission to come in.

"Go away! I can't right now, I just can't! I need to be alone," she cried back, not just to Flash, but to the universe.

"You and I both know that even if I leave, you won't be alone and right now I think you need to hear from me more than you do from her."

Flash just waited. At first he heard nothing. Then her heard the bed creak and footsteps. Finally, the door opened. Twilight didn't even bother to look at him; she just turned around and went straight back to her bed where she sat down. Flash sat down beside her. He didn't put his arm around her shoulder or try to embrace her. He just sat beside her and started to look around.

"Wow," he said in some genuine awe, some fake, "it feels like forever since we've been here in this room. It's been what? - only a year? It feels like ten. I remember my dad telling me during my senior year to be careful. He said when you're young time passes slower. Seconds feel like hours, hours like weeks, weeks like decades. Sometimes it feels like whole continents switch and shift around from one birthday to the next. Then you graduate and time disappears before you. He said it feels like you go to bed an eighteen year old, full of napalm and TNT, ready to conquer the world; and wake a forty year old man with chronic back pain, bad knees, and arthritis in your hands. I didn't know exactly what he meant until now."

Flash then looked over at Twilight. She was staring down at the floor, tears silently streaming down her face, her hands clasped together between her knees. "Remember when your parents first let us come up here?" he asked somewhat playfully. "Remember what the rules were?"

Twilight nodded. "One of them had to be up here with us, no closed door, no loud music or TV." Twilight's voice was empty, sullen. She spoke barely above a muffle.

"Then it was one of them didn't have to be up here but the door had to be open and no loud music. After that that, the door could be closed but no music. Eventually there were no restrictions." Flash spoke in a light, airy tone of one remembering good times (which he was), but he kept looking at Twilight with concern.

"When I told my mom that we were moving in together," Twilight started speaking, small hints of actual happiness peaking through her words, "she said, 'well, you haven't gotten pregnant yet so I guess you guys know what you're doing'. I went, 'MOM!', but she told me they knew we had been having sex. Heck, they did when they were our age. She told me she thought the church was going to explode when she showed up in a white dress on her wedding day. She told me that no parent had ever stopped one of their kids from having sex ever. She told that wasn't the point. The point was to make us think. To think about whether this was important or not. She told me she was proud of me, proud of us, and that she loved me."

Twilight sat silent for a moment and Flash reached out and put his left hand on her right knee. "Remember how we met?" he asked softly.

Twilight spun her head around to look at him with an expression that looked as if she just caught him pissing in a baptismal pool. She gave him a soft punch on his left, upper arm, and said with a slight laugh, "Of course I do you dork. It's kind of hard to forget something like that since it involved coming her from another dimension."

She then looked back down at her lap. "I hardly ever think about them you know? My old home, my old friends. They meant the world to me and I haven't talked to them in three years. I don't know how they are doing, how Sparkle and Shimmer are doing, how Equestria is doing. If it weren't for all of you confirming what we went through, I'd think it was all just a dream, a fantasy I made up. I don't even consider my parents to be my parents anymore. I think of Sparkle's parents as mine.

"There were times when they'd bring out photo albums and show me pictures of Sparkle growing up. At first I played along and pretended I remembered. After a while though, I'd look at those pictures and I would actually believe I remembered them. I'm a thirty year old alicorn but I'm also a nineteen year old human." Twilight paused for a moment then added, "I'm also the incarnation of a goddess older than time."

She paused a little longer.

"Those people who got shot today are dead because of me" Twilight's voice began to crack again with fresh despair.

"No they're not sweetie," Flash said, trying to reassure Twilight, his voice almost breaking with the tears that were forming at seeing his beloved hurt so. "One crazy, evil man did that."

"A man I saved. If I had let that bus hit the water, go under, he would be dead and those people alive."

"And so would everyone else on that bus. Think of all the people who went home today because of you. How many people still have mothers, fathers, children, friends, all sorts of loved ones because you saved that bus."

"And how many of those fathers and mothers are abusive? How many people would be better off if they had died?"

"Twilight," Flash pleaded; trying to do whatever he could to keep her from going down this death spiral she was in. "You couldn't have possibly known who was doing or going to do what."

"I could have. I could have froze time, read everyone's mind, let the good ones alone and then changed the brains of the bad ones so they wouldn't hurt anyone again. I have that power but I don't use it. I either use it partially or not at all. I save people from one specific threat and do nothing as the bad ones I save do horrible things. How am I not complicit in that?"

"So what would you do? Change the hearts and minds of every human on Earth? Rewrite the laws of physics so no one or animal or plant for that manner had to eat another living thing? You know, rewrite the entire laws of the universe so everything stayed the same way for ever. Eternal youth, no death, no anger, just everyone being nice to one another?"

"Why not? If one can eliminate evil from the universe, eliminate hate, greed, hurt; why not? If one has the power, the real power to stop evil, but doesn't, how are they not just as guilty? How am I not guilty?"

"Because sometimes pain is good. When Sunset and I split, it broke my heart. Then I found you. I never would have done that if she and I had not broken up. There needs to be a balance. . ."

Twilight gave a bitter laugh, cutting Flash off before he could finish. "A balance? Every time I hear some one say there needs to be a balance between good and evil, what I really hear is 'I want to do shady shit and get away with it so I'm just gonna say there needs to be a balance to justify my shitty behavior'. Tell me, what evil would you be willing to endure, any one willing to endure so there could be 'balance'?"

Twilight got up and started storming off. Her sadness replaced by anger. "I gotta go. I need to be alone and think."

"Twilight, please, stay. There are rules, you told me that. You're hurt, you might do something you regret," Flash said as a plea for her to stay.

"She gave him one quick and said, "I already have," and walked out.

*****************************************************************************

It was dark now. The air was cool but not cold. Twilight liked that. She considered going to another planet but decided to just go to the city park. She wanted to be by herself but she didn't want to be alone. Here, she was surrounded by people but no one would bother her. Also, she had a lot of fond memories of this place. She needed all those memories now. Anger had given back to sadness. She felt crushing guilt at what had happened at the hospital. A man she had saved had taken the lives of others (including a new born baby). How could she ever live with herself after this? How could she accept this?

Oh dear Miss Twilight. How you fret so? Don't you realize that bus thing was only a microcosm of what you and your friends did three years ago? Of course you do. That's the real source of your guilt. So high and mighty, yet so unfulfilled. This is why. This is what you've always known; that despite everything you've done, you saved no one.

Twilight winced in pain at Chrysalis' fresh attack. Shut up, she said inside of her mind. What is it that you want from me? What are you trying to do? Just torture me?

I want you to see how futile your morality really is. You know why I stole love? It's what me and my kind feed off us. I was simply feeding my children. I never killed anyone. At least not before. Subjugate, terrorize, yes, but I didn't kill until I got here. Well, at least not kill outside of self defense. Can you say the say? You eat plants and animals, both are living things you kill or at least eat after someone else has killed them. Aren't your hands as dirty, if not dirtier than mine? Even if you were vegan, you'd still be killing plants, which are alive. We even know some plant species are sentient. So how was what I was doing any worse than what you do to feed?

You try to impose a moral order on an amoral universe and look at where it has gotten you? Tell me, when you fought my men, did you even think to banish them to another dimension? What about changing their minds so they no longer wanted to follow me? No. You simply fought and killed them. Of course if you would have done either of those, then each would have possessed their own moral short comings. Send them to another planet or dimension, how would they survive? What would they eat? How could they protect themselves? Rewrite their brains and how are you different than any despot alive or in the past except you could actually do what the only dreamt about? Oh, and then there's the question of what about their past sins, all the people they abused and killed in the past. You see, the more you try to find a "moral" way of doing something or living, the more rabbit holes you go down.

I said I wanted to unleash the First Ones because it would make me the most important person in history. I, Queen Chrysalis, the destroyer of everything. And that is true, in part; but, also because there was a purity behind it. No right, no wrong, no good or evil, I don't even believe in those things. Good, evil, empty words people pour whatever ideas and biases they have into. With unleashing the First Ones, it would have been only death for death's sake. No politics or crap like that. Not even for the First Ones themselves. They don't think of things like that, they can't think. They are incapable of it. The just do, react, out of instinct. Pure instinct. Free from all our intellectual and moral messiness.

Look at you now. You're a mess. Conflicted, guilt ridden, alone with your own misery, and me, so not that bad I guess. Tell me, is this what being good, being moral is all about? What will you do now? Huh? Stand by and watch this world tear itself apart, knowing you could save it but don't and therefor become complicit in it? Do you rewrite reality to make everything all sunshine and lollipops? Would your partner Sunset allow that? If she didn't, what would you do then? Fight her, kill her? Oh and let's not ignore that by doing so, you'd corrupt the goddess force, weaken the gates to the Abyss, and thus allowing for the First Ones to escape, devour the multiverse, and completely negate what you fought me for? Or maybe you half ass it like today. Save some, let others die. But how do you chose then? At random? On a whim. Or do you actively seek out who to save? You alone as judge, jury, and executioner if needs be. Whatever you decide it'll be the wrong choice because there is no right choice. By trying to find one you'll only drive yourself insane. You might have stopped me from my goal, but you didn't defeat me because I can't be defeated. I am the real truth of existence and you can never defeat that.

Twilight stood stone still, crying. Even though she was out in the open, it felt as though everything was closing in around her. She could offer no real rebuttal to Chrysalis' words. Everything felt hopeless, meaningless. She was empty, alone. She was a doll made of tissue paper in the middle of a storm.

"Ma'am, miss."

Twilight heard a small voice. It sounded young, maybe ten. It was curious but also afraid. She also felt a small hand tugging on her shirt. She looked down and saw it was a little, African-American girl. She had on a nice white dress with yellow flowers on it and a pink hoodie that was unzipped and the hood down. She had sky blue dress shoes on with white socks and her hair was in corn rows.

"Are you ok? You're crying?" she asked more curious than concerned.

Twilight wiped her eyes fast and put on a big, fake smile. "Oh, I'm fine honey. How are you? I'm Twilight by the way."

The little girl smiled and stuck out her hand. "I'm Stef-I-Nee." Stephanie was proud of her name. She was named after her father's grandmother. She always over pronounced it when she met people so they wouldn't get it wrong. Not that it was a hard name to say, but you never know.

Twilight smiled and took the girls hand, returning her smile with one of her own (although Steph's was real and Twilight's was mostly fake). "Well it's very nice to meet you Stef-I-Nee."

The little girl withdrew her hand but continued to smile. "I like your name, it's very pretty."

"I like yours as well. Want to know my last name?" Talking to this girl made Twilight genuinely feel better. She was gals they had met no matter for how short a time.

"Sure," Steph replied, her smile even bigger.

"It's Sparkle," Twilight thought the girl would like that even more but instead she screwed her face up as if she was smelling rancid milk.

"Twilight Sparkle? That's a weird name." Steph was beginning to question if she could trust this strange woman. There was no way Twilight Sparkle could be a real name.

Twilight just smiled and shrugged. "Weird names kind of run in my circle of friends." Twilight then looked at the girl a little more and was now starting to wonder where her mother was at. Steph was clearly not old enough to be on her own, was she? "Well, I guess you should go back to your mommy before you get in trouble for talking to a stranger."

It was at that the girl suddenly looked sad. "I lost my mommy. I was looking for her but I can't find her. I saw you crying and I thought if I helped you, you would help me."

"Absolutely sweetie. Here, I'll walk with you and you tell me where the last place you saw her was." Twilight was worried for the girl but relieved as well. She had a mission to concentrate on; something to divert her attention from her own pain. Twilight took Steph's hand and they started walking. "So how did you lose her?" she asked trying to get a better sense as to where to look.

Steph looked down, clearly ashamed. "I, I didn't lose her actually. I, I ran off."

"Oh honey, why did you do that?" Twilight was now worried. Was Steph being abused? Was that why she ran off? Was finding her mother the right thing to do?

In a low voice that was even more ashamed, Steph said, "She was being too clingy. Ever since the miracle this morning, she's been all over me. I love my mommy but it was a little much."

"Miracle?" Twilight asked confused.

Steph looked up in surprise that Twilight didn't know what she was talking about. "The bus this morning. The one that went off the bridge but floated back on. It was a miracle."

Twilight stopped dead and just looked at the girl, trying to hide her emotions. "Oh, did that touch your mommy somehow?" she asked trying to sound nonchalant.

"We were on it," Steph replied not believing Twilight hadn't heard about it. "It was take you daughter to work day where mommy works. We were riding there on the bus. We screamed and cried and then we were safe. Mommy said God was really looking out for us."

"Yes She was," Twilight said absently. She couldn't believe what was happening. This girl, Stef-I-Nee, had been on the bus she saved. The same bus as that psychopath. What were the odds of her running into this girl, or any survivor? One in a million, a billion, a trillion? She could do the math but didn't need to; for she already knew that it would be statistically impossible; yet her she was.

"God's not a girl," Steph responded in awe of little this woman with the strange knew.

Twilight gave a mischievous smile, the smile of a prankster who just told a joke only they knew. "You'd be surprised." Her face then got more serious and she asked, "So where does your mommy work?"

"The hospital. The big one. Saint something," Steph replied with pride.

"Oh, doctor? Nurse?"

"No cleaning lady. But that's ok. 'A dirty hospital is a deadly one, she always tells me."

"Very true. Very true."

"I'm gonna be a doctor though," Steph said, her face covered by the world's biggest smile, pride beaming out from her.

"I'm sure you will. May I ask what field, what type of doctor?"

"Uh-huh. Plastic surgeon. But not for actors or celebrities. There's too many of those already, and those people really don't need them anyhow. I want to help people like my daddy. His face got real messed up in the war. It made him real sad. I guess it also made him so he couldn't sleep. He ended up taking too many sleeping pills so he could get some rest. I want to help people like that."

Twilight just looked at the girl. She was an impossible child. Her father had gone off to war, came back disfigured, killed himself, and now she wanted to be a doctor to help people like him. She was a light in the darkness of this world. A light which was almost extinguished today. She saved a monster, but she also had saved an angel. Here was the grace, the comfort she had been looking for without even knowing it.

Twilight looked up at the sky and said, "I love the park. I like that it's lighted as well. Safety and all. I do miss seeing the stars though."

Steph looked up at the sky as well, although a bit confused by what this lady was getting at. "Yeah, I miss the stars too."

Twilight then smiled as big as she could. "So, let's see them shall we?"

Twilight lifted her left hand up to the sky, fingers spread. At once a million dots of light shone in the sky, breaking through the haze of the lamps that were scattered throughout the park. The twinkled brilliant blue, gleaming white, radiant red, orange, and yellow. They then started to move and dance. They came closer but never increased in size. They flew down and spiraled around the Twilight and Steph.

Steph looked on in amazement as the small points of light transformed before her into translucent, glowing butterflies. All the colors as before plus green and purple. As they swirled around them they formed a rainbow pattern. Stephanie dropped Twilight's hand and reached out to touch them. Her hands went right through them and she felt a nice, warm sensation as they did. She laughed and looked over to where Twilight had been but she was gone.

"Up here," Stephanie heard Twilight say, so she looked up. Twilight was now floating in the sky with two large wings stretched out from her back. Her hair was being blown back and Stephanie thought she was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

"Care to fly with me?" Twilight asked and stretched out her right hand.

Stephanie nodded in awe. She suddenly felt her floating up to where Twilight was and took her hand again. They were then off, flying up, higher and higher; the light butterflies continued to swirl around them as the ascended. Soon they were in space. Stephanie knew that this should be impossible but was too excited to care.

The light butterflies or start bugs or star flies (she couldn't decide which was a better name for them), started to swirl around them faster, creating a solid, rainbow wall. The wall then began to break apart into a million fractal images. Those images then bean to fold back in on themselves forming a kaleidoscopic effect. Then those kaleidoscopes fold and twisted back forming a kaleidoscope of kaleidoscopes. It was beautiful and strange.

"What is this?" Stephanie asked in joyous wonder.

"The underlying math of the universe," Twilight answered with equal joy as the flew through the twisting, pulsating, ever changing patterns of color.

"I don't understand," Stephanie replied honestly but too in awe to care.

"Few people do," Twilight responded with a laugh.

It was then Stephanie heard the music. It was layered, dense, yet simplistic. It was strange yet familiar. Beautiful beyond compare; even more than the lights that surrounded them.

"And that?" she asked, over come by emotion.

"That? That is the song of creation. The song of the multiverse. The harmony of the strings. All this, the lights, the music, is what underpins everything. It's reality itself." Twilights voice was soft, soothing, motherly.

"You're God," Stephanie said not knowing if it was a question or a statement she was making.

"I told you you'd be surprised. I was the one that saved you this morning. Unfortunately, I saved the bad man as well," Twilight said with remorse.

"That's ok. I never believed you were perfect anyhow," Stephanie replied back, grinning from ear to ear.

"No, I'm not. That's why I need people like you Stef-I-Nee."

"Anytime!" Stephanie exclaimed. Here she was in the presence of God (who was a girl like her) and She said She needed her help.

"Thank you. Now let's get you back to your mommy."

With that, they rapidly descended back down. It was like going through a tunnel only in negative. They tunnel was made up of brilliant colors at the end was just a small speck of darkness. The speck grew and grew as they went further dawn. Soon it formed a picture. It was Stephanie's mother; calling out for her.

"MOMMY!" she yelled.

"See, I found her. Just like I said," Twilight said in an almost rapturous joy.

They kept getting closer and closer and Stephanie was afraid they might even crash but in a flash of white light, they were standing on the ground behind Steph's mother.

"MOMMY, MOMMY," Steph cried out and went running over to her mother.

"BABY!" Steph's mother cried in joyful tears. She knelt down and scooped Steph up in her arms in a big hug. "Where have you been child? I thought I lost you!"

"It's ok Mommy. I was with . . ."

"Hi. I'm Yuyami Kagayaku." Twilight said and stuck out her hand. Twilight saw Stephanie give her an odd look so she decided to clarify things. "Twilight Sparkle. That's what my name means in English." Twilight looked at Stephanie and both shared a secret smile.

"Oh, well thank you Ms. Ka . . ." Stephanie's mother tried to pronounce her Japanese last name but Twilight mercifully cut her off.

"Twilight's fine."

"Thank you Miss. Twilight," Stephanie's mother said, somewhat embarrassed.

Twilight turned to Stephanie one last time. "I expect great things out of you Stef-I-Nee; don't let me down."

"I won't Twilight. I like your other name better."

Twilight laughed and waved good-bye to both of them and walked off.

What? Do you think this changes anything? Do you think this negates anything I said earlier?

Twilight suddenly found herself in the throne room of the Crystal Castle. On the throne sat Chrysalis; still in her rotting human form.

"Well Twilight, do you?" she asked in a cool, taunting manner. "One cutesy exchange with a little whelp and suddenly everything is ok?"

Twilight smiled and shook her head. "No. No it doesn't. BUT; neither does what that man did make it worse. Life is imperfect. As you said, it's an amoral universe. However that doesn't make things hopeless. It just means that we all just have to try our best. Help those we can, forgive ourselves when we can't, and remember that we do not know all the answers.

"The humans have an expression; two actually - 'the road to hell is littered with nice guys with good intentions' and 'never does the devil tempt so fully than at the foot of the alter'. Both, in their way acknowledges an ironic truth; that the greatest atrocities aren't carried out by people like you, not mustache twirling Dirk Dasterdlies, but by people like me. People who are convinced they are right and know what's best."

"But you have the power to remake the universe in your image with no bloodshed, no torture. The others didn't have that," Chrysalis retorted.

"The power, yes, but the wisdom?" Twilight stopped and thought for a moment before continuing. "I, my actions, allowed for those people to be murdered today. I have to live with that. They also allowed that little girl to live and to go on and do great things."

"If she follows through that is," Chrysalis brushed off Twilight's answer.

Twilight shrugged. "Maybe she will, maybe she won't. At least now she has a chance. They all do. Maybe that's just what they all need - a chance. What will be, will be and I will continue to try to make things better in a way that doesn't compromise my own morality; just like everyone else."

"But you're not like everyone else," Chrysalis said accusingly.

"Yes I am. The day I stop believing that, the day I start to believe that I'm better than everyone else, that I alone can fix everything, is the day I become the villain."

"You're a fool Twilight," Chrysalis hissed.

"Maybe. But your dead. It's time for you to rest now Chrysalis. Good-bye."

Chrysalis slowly faded away like a column of smoke, then the throne room itself vanished and she was back in the park.

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"So she's gone, for good?" Flash asked as he crawled in bed beside Twilight.

"Yeah, I honestly think so. Who knows? Maybe she was never real in the first place. She could have been just a manifestation of my own guilt that I felt after talking to Rainbow Dash for the last time. Anything is possible I suppose." Twilight wrapped her arms around Flash and cuddled up next to him.

"Well, I'm glad you're ok now." Flash gave Twilight a kiss on top of her head.

"Great power may bring great responsibility; but you can only wield it properly with even greater humility. Night babe, love you."

"Love you too sweetie," Flash said and then turned off the light.